BE WHO YOU ARE

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In Christ, Mark

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Better to be a nobody and yet have a servant than pretend to be somebody and have no food.

Proverbs 12:9

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Author Tommy Tran once wrote, “We live in a world full of people who are satisfied with pretending to be someone they are not.”

I think he might be onto something because we see this happen all around us, don’t we?

I know I have been associated with people who carried themselves around as if the world rotated around them. They were hopelessly self absorbed to where others didn’t want to be around them. It was sad really because they were the only ones who couldn’t see that they were not really as great as they thought they were. Maybe you know a few people like this.

I have also seen people who put on a façade about how much money they have. They seek to buy things that would tend to reflect they have clout, a nice home and a luxury vehicle, when they barely have enough to afford what they buy. Most of the time, I think to myself, it won’t be long before they pay the price for that kind of foolish living, and most of the time, I am right. The next thing I know, they are trying to sell the home or the car, underwater in their payments and in financial ruin.

There are plenty of examples of people who choose pompousness over humbleness all around our world today. It’s obvious there were a few around in Solomon’s time as well for he wrote this proverb:

Better to be a nobody and yet have a servant than pretend to be somebody and have no food. Proverbs 12:9

Other translations expand the understanding of this verse:

He that is despised, and hath a servant, is better than he that honoureth himself, and lacketh bread. (KJV)

Better to be despised and have a servant, than to be self-important and lack food. (NRSV)

Better to be dishonored, yet have a servant, than to act important but have no food. (HCSB)

Better to be lowly and have a servant than to play the great man and lack bread. (ESV)

Better to be held in low regard and have a servant than to be conceited and lack food. (CEV)

Now before we go any further here, we need to understand the meaning of the word despised as used in this verse. The word, as used in this verse, did not refer to someone hated and looked down upon. It meant someone who was lowly, looked upon in society as not having much. These were ordinary people without great stature. They worked hard to make ends meet and maybe even had a servant to help them with their work and provide companionship. They went about their ways humbly and without seeking honor. They were real and genuine people, grounded people who didn’t pretend to be something that they weren’t.

Solomon compares this kind of person with the one who is the antithesis of humility, the person who always pretended to be somebody when they were actually no more than the one who was lowly. This person was the arrogant one, the one who always trended toward ostentatiousness. They would be the one who always came off as arrogant and prideful, always having an excessively high opinion of themselves. And through this behavior, they only came away looking one way: like a fool.

Now, given these two kinds of people, note where God’s word makes it clear that the ordinary person of modest stature who keeps it real in the way they live and carry themselves, is clearly better than the conceited, haughty person who pretends to be something they aren’t.

God doesn’t honor superficiality or excessive condescension or overbearing egotism. He doesn’t favor people who go out of their way to try and impress. And He doesn’t approve of people who opt for a phony, counterfeit lifestyle.

No, God doesn’t go for any of that for He wants us simply to be the people He created us to be, people who love and serve others, telling them about His Son Jesus and the salvation He brings and doing it to honor and glorify His holy and precious name. When we do this, when we humbly place God and His Son Jesus first in everything that we do, then it’s always about Them and never about us. We become ordinary people, a band of nobodies, who They use in extraordinary ways to do extraordinary things, not because we are anything but rather because They are everything.

Friends, this is the best life we can live and as Christians, it is the only life we can live unless we want to be seen by our Lord as pretenders and we know He doesn’t want or support that.  

God’s word encourages us to just be who we are in Him, to live in Spirit and in truth. And that’s all we really ever need to be to find ourselves blessed beyond belief now and forever.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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